Marc Jacobs Beauty Makes Instagram Shoppable With A DIY Effort

Without an official way to link social media with ecommerce, businesses looking to use social channels for direct sales are improvising. And the latest such effort — by Marc Jacobs Beauty — is a DIY job. Instead of turning to Curalate’s Like2Buy or RewardStyle’s LiketoKnowIt or a similar vendor offering a plug-and-play solution, Marc Jacobs’ […]

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Without an official way to link social media with ecommerce, businesses looking to use social channels for direct sales are improvising. And the latest such effort — by Marc Jacobs Beauty — is a DIY job.

Instead of turning to Curalate’s Like2Buy or RewardStyle’s LiketoKnowIt or a similar vendor offering a plug-and-play solution, Marc Jacobs’ in-house digital team worked with the company’s email provider Bronto Software to turn its Instagram account into another sales outlet.

Here’s how it works: Users sign up by providing their email address and Instagram handle on this form. Then anything they like from the @marcbeauty Instagram account that has a #ShopMJB hashtag, will trigger an email with a link to a product page on the Marc Jacobs site.

“By developing this completely in-house with our email provider, we’re able to control every touchpoint with the customer,” Kelly Coller, senior director of marketing for Kendo brands, told Marketing Land in an email. “The experience is customized and seamless, eliminating additional steps to shop and keeping the interactions wholly between Marc Jacobs Beauty and our social fans. We’re also able to take it a step further and will be offering exclusive deals to our followers through the experience.”

The Marc Jacobs Instagram account has been using the #ShopMJB hashtag sparingly; since launching the feature last week it has used the hashtag only three times, receiving an average of 2,300 likes on each. Coller declined to share response figures but said they are very pleased.

“So far, the response has been great,” Coller said. “We’ve exceeded our initial goals and proved that this type of social shopping experience is something our customers were hungry for.”


Opinions expressed in this article are those of the guest author and not necessarily MarTech. Staff authors are listed here.


About the author

Martin Beck
Contributor
Martin Beck was Third Door Media's Social Media Reporter from March 2014 through December 2015.

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